We're in Richmond Already!

For the past two months, I've been looking and thinking about this day.  Not that we're completely done, because we have the trip to Yorktown to ride on Monday.  But thinking about rolling into Richmond, and to my daughter Tess's apartment, seemed to me to be the symbolic end of the tour.  Perhaps because  three days before I left, Patty and I had moved her into her apartment, and so I had a very vivid visual of where we were headed?  Perhaps when I would talk to or FaceTime Tess, it reminded me of our target, but Richmond seemed to be so much more real than Yorktown, a place I've never been.  Today we rode into Richmond and now the end is real. 

This morning we left the Home2Suites in Charlottesville, about as early as we could.  They were nice enough to have to-go bags prepared, plus we grabbed a few extra items from the breakfast bar.  We do go through a lot of calories, you know.  A couple of Keurigs of coffee downed, room cleaned up and inspected, and we were on our way.  

Leaving Home2Suites, the last hotel of our trip

Now, understand that Jerry had been looking at maps for at least the past week, planning for this trip. He didn't sleep last night, likely worried about today. As we've said, this was going to be a long day, as Adventure Cycling's app stated that the trip would take 112 miles.  The day was slated to be another hot one, in the mid 90's (again), with plenty of humidity (again), so we were resigned to doing our best to mitigate these circumstances: get out early, get miles in before lunch, take breaks, but in the end we would need to ride through the hot afternoon and be resigned to a sweaty day.  Jerry had looked at multiple parts of the route, looking at how we could bypass a couple of spots here and there, take a detour, stay on a road instead of veer off, as the maps suggested.  After all of these amendments, we thought we would be able to shave perhaps 17 miles from the route, taking us to about 95 miles for the day.  Still a long way, but not something we hadn't done.

Then we started riding.  Jerry was using Google Maps to get us to a spot where we could save some miles by taking an alternative route.  We rode out though the suburbs of Charlottesville, and needed to take route 250 to get to the start of the "detour."  And we rode on 250.  And it was pretty empty.  And then we passed a sign that said "Richmond 66 miles."  And we looked at the Google Map, and saw that 250 runs right along side Interstate 64, meaning that most traffic would likely take that route, not 250.  And we discussed the merits of just going 250 all the way.  I said, "How could we go wrong?" but what I really meant was "How wrong could we go?"  If we could save on the order of 25 miles from our best scenario, so what if it turns out bad.  We could just ride back to the original route and still be ahead.  We talked about it quickly, and then just started pedaling down Route 250.  

An old service station from when 250, or 3 Notch Road, was the main route from Charlottesville to Richmond. This is someone's home now

And it turned out to be likely the least-traveled, best roads we had ridden on of the trip.  Because it's a major highway, it is well maintained.  Because it is so close to I-64, and perhaps because it was Saturday morning, there was no one on it.  Feeling a bit guilty if this turned out to be disastrous, I counted the cars that went by.  In the next hour, or about 15 miles, we had fewer than 20 cars pass us.  in other words, this was less crowded than the terrible incoming Garth Road we rode yesterday getting into C-ville.  Wow, how long will this last, until the road starts getting crowded?  Well, because about every time we got close to a small town, there was another sign stating I-64, and pointing the way to the Interstate, it stayed this way all the way into the suburbs of Richmond.  

Who's driving this truck?  Were they the ones barking at us a few miles back?

So, instead of having what we anticipated to be a long, hot trip, we ended up arriving in Richmond at about lunchtime, 12:30 or so.  Wow.  And the road, while not being very interesting, was quiet enough that we weren't rushed and we weren't overwhelmed by traffic.  

Because of our early (almost two weeks early) arrival into Richmond, Tess would still be in Ohio, returning from the family trip to Lake James in Indiana.  Unfortunately she would not be arriving back home until tomorrow, Sunday, late.  Luckily, she anticipated this and hid a key to her apartment in her garden, so we were able to open her garden gate, use the key, and let ourselves in.  Thank you Tess!  It was really great to be able to get to the end (of the penultimate day, of course), and have a place to stay. We were able to get showers, in an air-conditioned place, with WiFi, all of our checkmarks were covered.  And a bonus comes tomorrow when Tess comes home and we pick her up at the airport.  I get to see my middle girl, too.  I did a little grocery shopping in anticipation of what we, and she, might need, got a little bit of the Vienna Lager that I had in Lexington, and ordered pizza.  

Monkey and Cow, after a very long journey, arrive at Tess's

Strange not to have to get up, get on our damp clothes, clean up a hotel room and get out the door in the morning.  Tomorrow I think we'll explore Richmond, perhaps the Civil War museum.  Monday we'll get ready to ride to Yorktown - without bags!  We won't need them as Tess will pick us up in her car and we'll travel back to Richmond Monday night.  Tuesday we pick up a rental van and drive home to Lakewood.  

Today's numbers: 71 miles, about 2,000 feet climbed.

Special thoughts go out to my sister-in-law Kathy Baraga, as she tragically lost her husband yesterday.  We will say prayers for you and your family in this terrible time.  I'm so sorry and I will certainly miss Jim. 

We'll miss you Jim